I liked it a lot.
Striking visuals, and the story keeps pulling reality out from under you in unsettling ways.
Its crawled around in my head decades afterward after only the one viewing.
I've got to see it again, and maybe even own it someday.
But that list is so huge already.

Seven (1995)

I've got to give this one another chance sometime.
When I first saw it, I couldn't get past how much of a "Silence Of The Lambs", clone it felt like.

Cape Fear (1962)

I said in my "Psycho", review that Norman Bates was the prototype for the Freddys and Jasons, and I'd have to say Robert Mitchum as Max Cady is one of the next evolutionary steps along the way.

Check out both this, and the remake, they're both good.

The Vanishing (1988)

Another one that crawled around in my head after.
Very simple idea, no gore, but man oh man...

About a guy whose girlfriend disappears, and he spends the next few years trying to chase down who took her, and he thinks he knows who did it, and confronts the guy, and the guy won't admit to WHAT he did, but he cops to he did something, and he offers to show him what he did, but only if he takes a sleeping tablet.
The Bravo show spoils the ending, but I won't.
Check it out.

Single White Female (1992)

I see why this is on the list, because it's really popular, and was a hit in its day...but I think it's overrated.
This was part of a slew of movies that came on the heels of "Fatal Attraction", where the killer is in your life, and even usurping you.

Good for what it is, but not my cuppa tea as far as horror goes.
I dunno, I typically like my psychos blue collar.
Yuppie anxieties not so much.
Can't relate.

Fatal Attraction (1987)

I liked it a lot better than "Single White Female", but then, it was more original.
Or so I thought, until I saw "Play Misty For Me".

One of those ones you have to see at least once for pop-culture awareness.

Marathon Man (1976)

Excellent. Saw this way back in high school film history class.
Wish I could have taken 8 blocks of that class for all the good the other ones did for me.

One of the best thrillers ever.
Hoffman acts the shit out of this.
I'd easily put this on a "must watch to be a complete human being", list.

Duel (1971)

Speilberg's first movie. Made for TV. Pretty sure it retroactively got a theatrical release.

Very simple idea. A guy is chased by a maniac in a trailer truck for no reason that's ever revealed.
We never see the driver.
Just this evil truck that hunts him.

It builds, and builds, and gets crazier, and crazier, tenser, and tenser, until you think your heart's going to pop.
Speilberg was a genius right out of the gate.

The tension that the trailer and clips show is there...until the end where the ghosts reveal themselves, and they're out in broad room light as people, like "here we are", and it deflates all the tension and mystery.
And then the big twist is virtually identical to the one in "The Sixth Sense".

The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

Same loophole here as "Willy Wonka".

Here, according to the show, the creepiness is anything to do with the witch, and her flying monkeys.

I always did wonder, WTF was supposed to happen when the hourglass ran out?
Was a spell supposed to make Dorothy just drop dead, or was the witch going to run down, and hack her to pieces with a butcher knife?
And why the time limit?

We've all seen this, and if you haven't, where the fuck have you been?

Covered the plot pretty well there.
The 90's one is almost shot for shot the same movie, so watch either one.
They're both great.

Shallow Grave (1990)

A rare jewel in amongst "Pacific Heights", level drek.

Starring the 9th Doctor, and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

About three awful roommates who take in a 4th guy who up and dies, and leaves behind a satchel full of a million dollars, and they soon start distrusting each other, and then start bumping each other off for it.

Moral is, roommates suck, don't have any if you can help it.

Night Of The Hunter (1955)

Another one with Robert Mitchum playing a creep.

The protagonists are a little boy and his little sister, their dad is a crook who hides his ill-gotten gains in the girl's doll, then gets arrested, tried, and executed for the people he shot in the robbery.
Mitchum is the father's cellmate who gets out, and seduces the mother to try to find the money.

Very frustrating to watch, everyone was a naive gullible Bible-thumping idiot except the villain and the kids.
It was like watching the Trump campaign unfold in microcosm.

3 comments:

"The Ring" - I guess the video is slightly creepy, but aside from that I was never impressed with this at all.

"Se7en" - The only time Kevin Spacey's hamminess (oh yes he is...he ALWAYS was...go look up the clips from him playing a bad guy on the old TV show "Wiseguy" in 1987 if you don't believe me!) was good for the movie. Morgan Freeman is really good too, this is before he turned into a cliche. Yes, it took elements from SOTL but it's making a different, a far more nihilistic point. YMMV based on how ham-fisted you find the nihilism. Don't forget that this saved David Fincher's career and we have all of his good subsequent films to thank because this was a surprise smash hit back in 1995.

"Jacob's Ladder" - Wish the ending hadn't been spoiled for this for me so many times.

"Marathon Man" - It was good enough. Laurence Olivier got sorta hammy towards the end of his life but he was good in this one at least.

"Willy Wonka" - No one mentions this movie anymore WITHOUT mentioning that snake crawling out of the dead dude's mouth in the train car. Pretty sick for a kid's movie. No one mentions the movie AND remembers to mention what an unbelievable dick Roald Dahl was though.

"The Sixth Sense" - It has some maudlin moments, but I do still basically like it. It was the only time Shyamalan was very good that I know of although I know he had some success with that TV show of his this year.

"Signs" - Never liked it. Some nice images I guess. The "twist" is godawful. Stopped watching Shyamalamadingdong after this.

"The Night Of The Hunter" - Directed by Charles Laughton who apparently had a horrible time making it. It's just a *good* movie, but a special one, and I'd like to have the Criterion DVD just for the awesome cover art.

Fincher's hit or miss...."Gone Girl" is just okay (the Neil Patrick Harris scenes are terrible) and I kinda had to give "Dragon Tattoo" multiple viewings to like it (its ending is admittedly glorious and blows the Swedish original away.) But I gotta give him "Zodiac," "Fight Club," "Se7en," and "The Social Network" as his four great ones....so he'll always be of interest. And we can't hold "Alien3" too much against him (and "Alien3" has lots of defenders now, although they didn't ever make me quite one of them.)

"Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation" is average. Not great. Better than "SPECTRE" which I'm probably going to end up hating more in retrospect. Uh, if you give a crap. Did I mention this already? Bleah.